Birth Control
Dr. Eric Keroack has been appointed by President Bush to head up the Office of Family Planning. Keroack currently is medical director of A Woman's Concern, a Christian nonprofit. The group’s purpose is to discourage pregnant women from having an abortion. Now, some feel abortion is murder, and some feel what a woman does with her own body should not be subject to government intervention. That argument will go on forever. But this group goes way beyond that.
From the San Francisco Chronicle:
The Keroack appointment angered many family planning advocates, who noted that A Woman's Concern supports sexual abstinence until marriage, opposes contraception and does not distribute information promoting birth control at its six pregnancy-service centers in Massachusetts.The mission statement can be found here. The contraceptive policy is the only section in a PDF format.
"A Woman's Concern is persuaded that the crass commercialization and distribution of birth control is demeaning to women, degrading of human sexuality and adverse to human health and happiness," the group's Web site says.
Birth control demeaning to women? Why? Because it encourages premarital or extramarital sex? Thats just like a man, to think that the purpose of birth control is to enjoy free sex. A woman looks at the purpose of birth control and thinks about her life. Face it, the vast majority of women of childbearing age are married. Maybe we take it for granted today, but when birth control was not widely available, life was quite different. Women didn’t want to die in their 30s and 40s from birthing their 10th, 11th, or 12th child. They didn’t want to have to divide the family’s resources fifteen ways, which left no one with adequate nourishment and nurturing. From The History of Birth Control, we learn what impelled Margaret Sanger to campaign for birth control.
BORN Sept. 14, 1879, in Corning, N.Y.
Born into an Irish working-class family, Margaret witnessed her mother's slow death, worn out after 18 pregnancies and 11 live births.
While working as a nurse and midwife in the poorest neighborhoods of New York City in the years before World War I, she saw women deprived of their health, sexuality and ability to care for children already born.
Its no coincidence that the number of families with six children or more dropped like a stone after The Pill became available in the early 60s. This is far from just an issue of teenage pregnancy. This issue goes to the very core of how women are viewed by the entire culture. We cannot let modern-day value judments send us back to the Victorian Age, or the Stone Age. I’m not all het up on this because I depend on birth control. I don’t. I’ve never been pregnant. But I have daughters, and even if I had sons instead, I would be concerned for the women they eventually love. In the same way, this is not just a woman’s issue because it affects a man’s life, too, as well as the lives of his mother, wife, sisters, and daughters.
posted by Miss Cellania at 3:02 PM
25 Comments:
As William Blakes said (I think it was Blake) "Religion wages war on human nature."
I know another lot who think women should be isolated, uneducated and fit only for impregnation - equal opposites perhaps?
Dear God save us all from religious fanatics.
"Thats just like a man, to think that the purpose of birth control is to enjoy free sex. A woman looks at the purpose of birth control and thinks about her life."
Either way you look at it, it's still about selfishness. Men may look at it as a way to enjoy mostly-worry-free sex, but women do the same thing. God forbid that a child is conceived (what we were put on the earth for - to procreate) and spoil our having a Beemer in the driveway and carefree vacations in the Bahamas! The Hispanics, Muslims (and others) are procreating their way to world domination, while Westerners are birth-controlling themselves to oblivion.
And before you beatify the evil witch Margaret Sanger, have a peek at these:
http://www.cfacr.org/pages/article.php?aid=344
http://www.blackgenocide.org/sanger.html
http://www.blackgenocide.org/abortion.html
and:
http://www.cbn.com/CBNnews/CWN/042106Abortion.aspx
One of Dr. Martin Luther King's daughters supports blackgenocide.org's work - and used to have a letter on their site, but I can't find it.
It is a woman's choice. She has to carry the child and birth it. She is also the one who has the brunt of the responsibility to care for the child. Not all men mind you, but many abondon their responsiblities.
Mexico is a very poor country. Many people live in homes with dirt floors and are hungry.
Many Muslim woman live under the thumbs of thier husbands. I'll bet they wouldn't if they had birth control.
Jesus said the 'poor you will always have with you'. I've been to third world countries and I can tell you this:
Poor does not equal unhappy.
My wife is from the Philippines - every time I've been there, the people are always smiling and happy - poor or not. It's easily one of the poorest countries on earth, and a lot of people there don't have a pot to piss in or a window to empty it out of. Thank God (as far as I know) that abortion is still illegal there (and until recently - if they aren't still illegal - divorce and contraceptives.)
I think spoiled Westerner people here think that if *other* people don't have the latest toys, gadgets and contraptions, they ain't happy. It just ain't so. So, if they are poor, they must have access to kill their unborn children so there's not so many of them unhappy buggers running around bugging our liberal conscience. Yeah, that's it!
As some of you may know, I just came from fighting a war in an Islamic 'Republic' (Afghanistan) for a year. I don't know what Islamic women having birth control would do to change any thing.
The woman had her choice when she opened her legs. That very act by its very purpose and nature might produce a living human baby. I'm sorry these selfish witches can't have that interfere with their 'life'. What if their mothers had thought the same way? Why should killing a defenseless human child be a 'choice'? Pretty damned selfish, if you ask me, not to mention just plain evil.
I see that they might be anti abortion, but they are prepared to discuss it and even to counsel women after the fact.
So it would seem that abortion (or whatever foul word could be used instead) is LESS of a taboo to them than contraception. That seems to make it all about appearances, to me.
But, VS, sometimes a woman does not willingly "open her legs." You yourself have mentioned the high incidence of rape in Afghanistan.
What about a Catholic woman, conscientiously practicing the rhythm method with the loving cooperation of her husband, the only method of contraception allowed by the Church, only to have that method fail, and her diabetes means that attempting a full-term pregnancy would likely result in her own death, and the death of the baby? What if that woman had had access to more effective birth control?
The Catholic Church needs the birth control ban for one reason only: to keep its women reproducing Catholic babies. I've never seen a Catholic issue so obviously about nothing BUT power -- power in numbers. It's an outdated political stance that has absolutely nothing to do with faith or spirituality.
Most people can separate the issue of abortion from the issue of contraception after about a minute's thought.
There are some contraceptives that are abortifacients (things that cause an abortion). They also serve the same purpose - just different means to the same end. They are both evil. They both either prevent or kill a baby - depriving the unborn to their right to life. Both reduce sex to mere pleasure without consequences or responsibilities. Pathetic (to use one of the words hurled against me) that you all don't know or understand that.
And of course, if a woman is forced to have sex, she didn't have a choice 'when she spread her legs'. But those women don't generally have many other freedoms - and most certain not the 'freedom' to murder their unborn baby. That comment was directed at free, Western type women. Free people who freely excercise their right to have consensual sex should NOT have the right to kill the byproduct. With freedom comes responsibility and a baby is a part of the responsibility of the freedom to do the wild thing. I still fail to see how Afghan women having access to contraceptives/abortifacients/abortion would improve their lot in life.
And Zilla - if you don't understand the spiritual and moral reasons that the Church has for banning birth control, then you haven't fully understood or been properly taught the reasons why. I haven't the time or inclination to try and explain in this space. And since someone here apparently doesn't want me to post here anymore, I won't - and apparently I don't take more than a minute's thought before responding to something, like 'most people'.
I'll also bet no one bothered to check out the links I posted above - I see no one made a snide comment about those...
I knew when I decided to post here it was a waste of time and pixels. Apparently the creators of this want a bunch of liberal sheep to post here "Right on, sister!", my comment should read. Sorry that you thought it was a success because I dropped by (thanks to knowing Zilla) - I shall revert to showing more restraint before entering a hornet's nest. A great friend on here (more your type of person, I think) told me that she just chooses not to comment on most things she doesn't agree with. It's better that way - no one's mind usually gets changed, anyway.
P.S. btw, you people know nothing about Afghanistan, or what we (the coalition forces) are doing there and have done there and about the day-to-day living conditions there. Muslim culture is incomprehensible to us - and ours to them - and maybe we should just leave their culture and religion alone ... I also haven't the space, time, or inclination to educate you all on this - except maybe in my own blog. This may motivate me to do so one day, but for now, I won't.
P.S.S. Kind of ironic that while writing this I got telephone-solicited by a group called Concerned Women Of America who wanted a donation to help stop the horrific procedure of partial-birth abortion - a murder that is NEVER necessary and has never been performed to save the mother's life. It merely helps a women who decides very late in the pregnancy (where viability is surely there) kill her baby in a most gruesome, disgusting, and hideous manner.
Off Topic yet again, you obviously have a lot more than your trip to Afghanistan that is private to you, and very strong feelings about someone.
I don't know how abortion law differs between our countries, but as this was about contraception, I feel your understanding of what is being discussed is completely clouded. You were asked not to comment and continue in this divisive manner, so future remarks will be removed.
I hope you feel you have had your say.
Like I said, do you want all the comments on your blog to be "Right on, sister!"????
Do you have anything to say other than ad hominem attacks in which you claim I am off-topic and clouded?
No one here has refuted any of my points or websites - they've just attacked me (and threatened to censor me).
If you can't stand differing opinions, get out of the blog business.
(Sort of like, "If you can't stand the heat, get out of the kitchen.")
I just came back from a doctor's appointment where I was diagnosed with PTSD - I dunno if any of this is related to that.
The hardest job on this earth is to be a mother.It's equivalent to signing on to a 20 year hitch where you will be on call 24/7--and even when your service is over, you'll still be on call for the rest of your life.
(Fatherhood is the second hardest job, but only if that parent is actually participating in the work.And a lot of men DON'T!)
So when you can get pregnant and give birth, Violin Soldier, then you'll have a right to pass judgement on women's reproductive rights. Until then, feck off.
Oh man, my stomach hurts.
Okay, before I read the comments, this is what I had in mind to say:
I once lost a lot of blood due to polyps in my, well somewhere. As a result I almost died, and would have if I hadn't gotten myself to the hospital emergency room.
In order to get the situation under control I was given two big ol' bags of blood--transfused--underwent a d and c and then they put me on birth control pills to regulate things and keep me from bleeding to death.
I had never been on birth control before. I stayed on it until I felt it was safe to go off, about two years.
So, birth control helped to regulate my body, and proved to be a good solution in this instance.
I would like to say that I would advise anyone who is going on birth control to get all the facts first, and to be very careful.
Especially if they are contemplating going on the birth control patch. Please know that it puts 60 percent more estrogen into your system than the regular pill, which can be extremely dangerous to the right, or I should say wrong person.
xx, Lori
I never said poor equals unhappy. However, hungry does. I would anguish if I couldn't feed my hungry children. Many poor would be all over contreceptives if they were available. I would never suggest an abortion to anyone, let alone suggest it because someone is poor. I was talking about contraceptives.
I have to say, I've never been to the middle east. However, I have read how mistreated the women are. I believe contraceptives would give them some freedom.
I didn't attack you VS. I just disagreed.
I could say so much, but I don't think anyone bothers to read what I wrote before attacking me or parroting the tired, old, misguided mantras of liberalism - especially the 'you are a man so you cannot have an opinion' garbage. Keep your hateful anti-male, sexist opinions to yourself. With that logic, anyone who hasn't served in Iraq or Afghanistan cannot hold an opinion on the war.
Oh, and the mislabeling of contraceptives and abortion as 'reproductive rights'? Just semantics for the evilness inherent in those things - and again showing that the unborn have no rights - only selfish people who survived being carried by their mother have rights, apparently. There should never, ever be a 'right' to kill an unborn child. Period. The reasons people give for doing that boil down to one thing: selfishness. They don't want to be 'inconvenienced'.
Mother Teresa said, "The greatest destroyer of peace is abortion because if a mother can kill her own child, what is left for me to kill you and you to kill me? There is nothing between. It is a poverty to decide that a child must die so that you may live as you wish."
Did anyone ever check out those links I gave - especially the ones at blackgenocide.org that help expose the racist evil witch Margaret Sanger and Planned Parenthood - and why they target blacks and other minorities to have more abortions and use contraception? I would figure liberals would be against racism ...
Here is a better version of the Mother Teresa quote:
"If we accept that a mother can kill even her own child, how can we tell other people to not kill each other? Any country that accepts abortion is not teaching its people to love, but to use any violence to get what they want. This is why the greatest destroyer of love and peace is abortion...It is a poverty to decide that a child must die so that you may live as you wish."
Agreed. Except this is about contraception. Contra-conception, stuff that intervenes before the egg and sperm even lock in together onto the womb lining and start.
Good advice should not be one sided, there are physical and emotional pros and cons to every choice and an educuated child is an informed child. Only when someone's darling daughter gets pressured into 'you would if you loved me' by the first teenage hormone-zombie to hold her heart by its strings, then only if she has been educated ahead of time on the choices and consequences, can you say that, to use your words, "she knew what she was doing when she opened her legs."
I said I would remove your subsequent posts - your reference to PTSD changed my mind. Yes it makes a huge difference, you were presenting as aggressive and intimidating, but PTSD means that your intent is defensive, that you are genuinely distraught and not intentionally poisonous.
Thank God for a diagnosis - which is half the battle for a cure.
Go well & God bless.
Why are the "parroted mantras of liberalism" tired, old, and misguided, while the regurgitated rantings of conservatism are not tired, old, or misguided?
Here's the answer: both parrotings and regurgitations are tired, old and misguided.
Expressing an opinion based on independent, rational thought, however, is not tired, old, or misguided.
It's foolish in this day and age to make an argument based on "because God said so." You'll never win an argument with "Because God said so." You've got to have some logic in order to back up "because God said so." Or, I suppose guns would do in a pinch?
To make any argument based on "because the Pope says that God says so" or "because George W Bush seems to think this is what God was really trying to say," well, that's just pure folly.
I love Mother Teresa, but if I'm raped this afternoon, the first thing I'm doing after the doc finishes the rape kit and I've given my statement to the police, is heading to Planned Parenthood and asking for emergency contraception. If conception takes place before the drugs cause my uterine lining to slough away, Violin Soldier will label me a murderer, which makes me glad that the power I answer to is a little higher than him, or mother Teresa, or George W Bush, or the Pope.
Good thought, Cheryl, allowing all arguments to stand.
I've got to say, while I'm all for reasoned, thoughtful debate, I think "Keep your hateful anti-male, sexist opinions to yourself." is a little strong.
I think that same person telling me to 'feck off' was a little strong.
Guess you missed that part.
Told to 'feck off' just because I am male and can't give birth or carry a child and therefore not entitled to have an opinion on this matter (which is silly because our cells contribute to half of the child - it just so happens that one sex was selected by God to carry the baby - and given all the right traits to do so wonderfully :) ) I guess this means that only the millions of wonderful women in the pro-life (pro-abstinence/no contraceptives and abortifacients movement) can have a valid opinion?
I shall not 'feck off'. I *will* use more restraint in further comments (if I choose to ever comment here again) ...
You know, VS, I sometimes suspect that I am one of those people you put up with only for the sake of the people we love in common, and that's okay, really. But, even without WM as our dear friend in common, I would never, ever tell you to feck off, no matter how deeply I disagree with you on some very essential, extremely emotional issues.
As someone who cares about people in general and about you personally (I am saddened to hear of your recent diagnosis, truly, I am; and I loathe our government for not providing veterans [I consider you a vet because although you've not yet been honorably discharged, you have over a year of active duty under your belt, and you've followed orders and been a good soldier in ways that I would never even begin to agree to doing, let alone follow through on, for your own reasons, and my agreement with those reasons is totally inconsequential] with adequate medical or mental health care), I would suggest that, sometimes, something as simple as the tone of the delivery of an opinion is enough to lose someone's attention, lose someone's interest in our point of view, or even make someone feel absolutely defensive as opposed to receptive.
I don't admit this very often, but in the past, when my ex listened to Rush Limbaugh, I would find myself almost agreeing with him (Mr Limbaugh) about .01% of the time, and the thing that shut me down all of those .01% times was his delivery. I did not want to listen to him, not because of what he had to say, but because of the way he felt he had to say it.
I can be a blowhard, too. It's great fun in certain forums. But if I truly care to sway someone's opinion, I realize that my first challenge is to keep them listening, and I can't do that if I come on too strong.
It took four children and a step-child for me to learn this, by the way. We all want our children to accept our guidance, and if we're naturally, strongly opinionated or extremely confident in our beliefs, we'll turn our kids off regarding very critical issues.
It pays to learn to express the important matters unemotionally and inoffensively, so that the people we hope to sway do not become too defensive to hear us. I would not tell you this if I did not feel your opinions need to be heard.
Having said that, I'll admit I may have been mistaken in taking the "Grumpy Old Bitches" theme as an invitation to blow off a lot of steam with a bit of humor.
Cherly -- do we need to redefine what we're doing here, or is pot-luck fine by you?
Cherly. Please know that was not a Freudian typo. Whatever it means to be "cherly."
"righteous ire, momentary flipouts and total bullshit."
Thats what it says on the tin. Blowing off steam AND humour, yes, yes.
Thats as long as flipouts are truly momentary - so for a visitor/commenter that would mean it was covered and OVER in one or two posts - fine.
I don't invite contributors to set out their soapbox and start an intense political campaign, and I reserve the right to stop commenters from doing that also.
However given that VS' condition means he will be belligerent and hypersensitive all at once, unaware of his own aggression and yet truly wounded by other peoples reactions - then I see his last comment as a genuine (if unecessary) attempt at self defence.
I think maybe a few more of us could blogroll him and be there to take the wobblies.
So we're done here and I am going to adhust the number of posts on the front page, for a little while.
I like it here........ so many dollies out of so many prams :-)
Hugs all.
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